Microsoft announced a number of things and covered plenty of games in their Gamescom Media Briefing this year, but by far the biggest news of all, and pretty much all anyone is talking about right now, is the revelation that Rise of the Tomb Raider will release next winter, exclusive to the Xbox One.

Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb proudly announced this to the world:

Just announced… Rise of the Tomb Raider, coming holiday 2015, exclusively on Xbox.

Our two cents: The plot is ongoing, but the operative word is still "exclusive", and Sony have shown that being first with third-parties this gen can make a difference. But, the unwillingness of Microsoft's senior management to describe the exclusivity in absolute terms is somewhat telling. Titanfall, for example, was referred as exclusive in perpetuity, but there's been no such language exhibited here. Moreover, the game is still being published by Square Enix as far as we know, not Microsoft Studios. That should give some hope to the disgruntled gamers hoping for PS4/PC versions.

Crystal Dynamics should have written an open letter saying "We could have gone multiplat but MS gave us a boat made of and filled with cash"

absolutely disgusted by this news. i feel physically sick that crystal dynamics would do this to a vast amount of tomb raider fans. and for them to try and appease us with the temple of osiris is frankly an insult. its a sad day that they have said they want it to be the best tomb raider game it can be, why make a game like that and keep it to one console. you mgiuht make a great game, but youre denying people to play it. buying an x box one just for one game is a ridiculous thing to do, and this tomb raider and lara croft fan, est 1996, is saddened that as of december this year, his relationship with lara croft will come to an end because of the greed and stupidity of one company.

absolutely disgusted by this news. i feel physically sick that crystal dynamics would do this to a vast amount of tomb raider fans. and for them to try and appease us with the temple of osiris is frankly an insult. its a sad day that they have said they want it to be the best tomb raider game it can be, why make a game like that and keep it to one console. you mgiuht make a great game, but youre denying people to play it. buying an x box one just for one game is a ridiculous thing to do, and this tomb raider and lara croft fan, est 1996, is saddened that as of december this year, his relationship with lara croft will come to an end because of the greed and stupidity of one company.

Oh noes, it's only available on 1 system.... if you want the game that badly, buy the bloody Xbox One, it's not like it was a Playstation franchise to begin with, came out on the Sega Saturn first, but then I guess half the people complaining on Twitter about M$ securing (temporary?) exclusivity were not even old enough to buy the original when it released.
There still isn't a compelling reason for me to shell out on either of these two machines, will eventually have both, but for now there is still an impressive amount of games for 360, PS3 and Wii U that need to get finished before dumping £300 + on a new console.

If it was something AAA then yeah like Assassins Creed or Destiny, then yeah I can understand.

But I dunno, perhaps there are more Tomb Raider fans out there then I imagined.

The thing is that Tomb Raider has massive name recognition due to it being around for so long, the two films and the whole Lara Croft look which is iconic. It extends far outside of normal gaming circles. So what MS have done is effectively buy a bit of popular culture. Whether that was a good idea or not remains to be seen!

MS just showed the world that they cant win this gen with fair play, instead they open their wallet and buys/kills a long existing franchise in order to gain a couple of more sells.

It just makes no sense:
X1 has the smallest number of consols sold in this generation = low sales
X1 sold 40% of what the ps4 sold in their previous game
Tombraider franchise appeared first on Playstaion, meaning that there are a bunch franchise lovers out there who now will be really angry (which twitter shows)

played the reboot on ps3 finished it and while graphics and gameplay were good i did not enjoy the game as a whole , story is fubar and so is the music if you can even call it music it was awful , so i really could not care less if its exclusive in fact i wish it would stay on xbox1 and see how much copies they will sell .

Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix deserve every single crappy comment that comes their way. Why create a reboot of a franchise on multi-platforms and then release the sequel on one platform. They seriously did it for Microsoft's money. They **** off so many fans (myself included), not just Playstation fans but PC fans as well (I have both). I have loved this franchise for many years but it seems like they don't actually care about the fans. Also if this is a timed exclusive, why not say it is. I know many people who are **** off enough that if CD and SE tell us it will be on PS4 and PC eventually, they will not buy this game.

If two systems are largely similar, but one is perhaps fractionally more powerful, and they both have the exact same games then the slightly more powerful one will sell well and the other will die. That's always been the way. And that would be no good for the consumer. We need choice and competition.

The main gaming systems have almost always differentiated themselves by their games catalogue. There'll be a lot of cross-platform games, but also lots of exclusives.
It's always been the way - whether you're looking at Spectrum -v- Commodore, Sega -v- Nintendo, Sony -v- Microsoft, or any of other "main battles" over the last three decades or so.

It's a good thing, and usually means consumers either buy one console and get access to most games or buy both consoles and get access to all games.

There's not really anything new here. Yes, it's usually new IPs that go console exclusive, rather than existing ones, but not always. (e.g. Bayonetta and Stealth **** both going to the Wii U. in the last year, off the top of my head.)

You know I don't get why everyone is so upset. Yes its an Xbox One exclusive. But I'm way more excited about Bloodborne which From Software pulled out from making cross platform. I'll never be able to play it because I have an Xbox One but I'm not complaining. Just have fun playing the games you can get or buy both consoles. They are both solid pieces of hardware and anyone getting mad about what is better doesn't get the meaning of just have a good time. It DOESNT MATTER.

MS just showed the world that they cant win this gen with fair play, instead they open their wallet and buys/kills a long existing franchise in order to gain a couple of more sells.

Fair play? Give me a break. Sony threw money at Bungie to tie up extra Destiny content for a year. Sony bought exclusive rights to Tomb Raider back in 97-early 00s when the game first debuted multiplatform. Do you really believe there's "fair play" in business? All sides do it. To make as if one side is a saint is completely hypocritical.

If Sony had done this, would there even be half as much of an outcry? I mean, they already did way back when with Tomb Raider 2 and 3 by keeping it off of Sega and Nintendo's consoles, but here today?
I'm sure it'd be more fine because you know, the "fans" and "gamers" in the "this hurts fans/gamers" entitled reactions obviously isn't talking about those who own an Xbox One.
Just a bunch of "what about me?!!" entitled reactions, as always.